Lifespan of a great person

I was wondering .... is there a lifespan for great persons?

I'm asking cuz in a couple of my games I lost once a great merchant and in another game I lost a great engineer.

My merchant .... I put him in a boat to go the farthest possible ... but when I unloaded him on land 1 turn after he was gone.

My engineer ..... I lost him while he was travelling inside my cultural border to go to a city with a wonder in construction!

Is it a bug or do great persons have a limited lifespan?

hm... I've never seen something like this before. I've had a Great Engineer sit in one of my cities for about 500 years I think.

Yeah. I've never seen anything of the like either. Perhaps something bizarre just happened.

Nor have I ever mislaid a Great Person, however long one has been waiting for something worthwhile to do or travelling, and I've seen an AI Great Scientist wandering for centuries after being trapped by the cancellation of an Open Borders treaty.
But I have accidentally thrown away a Modern Armour by carelessly clicking on the 'delete unit' icon instead of the 'fortify' one. It vanished in an instant; no 'please confirm' warning, no sound effect, just disappearance. Can this be an explanation here ?

Are you sure you didn't just start a Golden Age with another Great Person and the one that you "lost" was used for the same effect?

Although I don't send him travelling, I usually keep one particular GE for the entire game without losing him. Okay, I have to admit to a "quirk" in my play. I can't bring myself to use Imhotep. I just can't. Every time I park him in my capitol and never use him for the entire game, even when he could rush a wonder. I'll use other GE's or chop the wonder or build it the slow way, but I won't use Imhotep. I just have this mental image of crowds filling the streets chanting "Im-ho-tep, Im-ho-tep." I think I've seen that movie one too many times.

I sent a Caravel out with a great merchant once only to discover an empty boat when it got there. I was the moron who used him for a golden age. oops

I also had a merchant eaten by barbarians.

Have you looked under the table

Captain Pugwash said:

Have you looked under the table

Click to expand...

Yes and all that I saw is lint and my cat sitting doing nothing more that producing more and more lint.

What I think hapenned for the great merchant is that he got caught by barbs (I have no better explanation).

It only hapenned twice ... I'll look further into this in my next game!